It sure is Joel,
My ramblings that I had already put in the comments section.
It is quite something that we have enough detailed information on Ganymede to do this. Both Voyager craft got good views as did the Galileo craft, despite the High Gain Antenna issue.
What I will be looking for & hopefully this new information may either prove or disprove is the cause of the apparent resurgence in geological activity on Ganymede approx 750 MYO - 1 GYA, when 'new' cryovolcanic features appeared & fresh rifting appeared to have occured.
Did Ganymede for a period enter a more elliptical orbit thus causing tidal heating? Ganymede is currently in a resonance with Io & Europa. Every once Ganymede orbits Jupiter, Europa orbits twice & Io four times. Was for a short period, this arrangement had been broken? If so why? Did a massive body pass Jupiter back then?
Ganymede also appears to be the only moon in the solar system to not just have an internally driven magnetosphere, but also a dual layered core, only Earth & Mercury are the other bodies suspected of having this special feature.
Ganymede is hugely evolved & is worth a study in it's own right, hense the Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (which will also pass Callisto several times). Hopefully we will get full global geological maps of Europa, Io, Titan, Enceladus & Dione at some point too. I understand partial ones have been done of the five major moons of Uranus & Triton, Neptune's large strange companion.
This is great stuff, it really is.
Andrew Brown.
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